By isn’t an eco life exciting, today I bring you re-usable dish cloths also known as scrubbies. Hold on to your seats you are in for a wild ride, well maybe not but it will be a wet one.
In a bid to reduce my one use items I looked at what I wash my dishes with. Now I do have a dishwasher that does most of the hard work for me but there are always pots and pans that are just not dishwasher safe/practical. Annoyingly for me that is mainly frying pans.
Before I started really looking into things with a view of how I can do it myself/thinking about the bigger picture I just bought something that looked like a solution. The eco egg one sponge, it costs £5.99 excluding delivery. The features of which are:
• Flexible silicone ripple scrubbers
• Silicone squeegee
• Nylon scraper
• Built-in soap pocket
• Long lasting
• Bacteria, stain and odour resistant
• Non-porous and hygienic
• Safe for non-stick coating cookware
• Sanitise in the dishwasher
In a nut shell I just don’t like it. Grease clings to it whilst washing so I feel the need to clean it as I clean my pan. The soap bit doesn’t really foam up or last long, I feel like I need to use more washing up liquid than normal. Yes it is flexible but not like a cloth, it is no good for washing a glass for example, there is just not enough surface contact. The only thing I do really like about it, is the hard grey scraper at the front, it does a great job of scraping hard baked on stuff without scratching the pan.
It is not a one use plastic but at the end of the day when I bin it, it isn’t going to biodegrade, it can be recycled but I have no idea if this type of item could be put in my curbside recycle bin. Nylon is plastic and silicon is technically rubber but a synthetic one and mixed with synthetic plastic polymer. I also thought about the damage the production of this item caused. The cost isn’t too bad as I do think it would last a very long time and if it worked well you could replace your disposable scourers and make your money back quite quick. But it doesn’t get an eco lass recommendation.
Most of the above pictured scourers are made from a type of plastic and come wrapped in plastic. They also can’t be used on non stick items and personally before the switch I would get through two to three a week easily and once used they went straight in the bin. As you can see I have this pack left over, I did keep them to see how I got on with my alternatives and I haven’t used one for a long time.
Of course I won’t be binning these I am hoping some one on my local pass it on site will take them off my hands. I feel it is ok to pass on plastic to some one who would be using plastic anyway, at least it stops them buying said items for a little bit and no point putting them straight in landfill.
So what am I using? Well my next stop was good old pinterest and of course an abundance of ideas were ready and waiting for me. I decided on making my own, this suits me personally as I am craft inclined and I often already have the necessary materials in the house but don’t worry if the thought of crochet makes you yawn or roll your eyes. You can easily buy hand made ones yourself online or find a crafty friend to help.
The other benefits of making them myself was getting to choose the colour, style and material. I also didn’t have to worry about the environmental cost of production, monetary cost, delivery or packaging (other than from the yarn itself). Winner winner chicken dinner.
So I chose to make some crochet scrubbies.
And as you can see I went for colour, I figured a white one was not going to look pretty after use and I believe in injecting fun into boring every day things. At first I used a pattern from one of my pinterest pins but that involved learning a new pattern and making it to a specific size but I am an avid fan of simple crochet I can do whilst watching TV.
Above is a one I have just started for a friend. In the end I made a simple C2C square with a double crochet border and sized it by preference. If you don’t crochet then that will sound like nonsense. I also class myself as a ‘hooker’, I have WIPs and I frog when I make a mistake. Enjoy googling those.
If you do crochet or knit and look up scrubbies you will see there is a wide variety of patterns, shapes and materials available so let me explain why I chose to use acrylic yarn. That’s right I am using a synthetic plastic yarn that doesn’t biodegrade, shock horror. My reasoning is as follows:
- It is vegan so no animal products used means less impact from animal agriculture
- It is hard wearing and easy to wash
- It costs less than wool and I have a lot of it already in my wool stash
- It is hypoallergenic
- But the main reason is it is the most suitable for this project as the plastics make it more anti-bacterial and they scrub better
So although the material is not perfect I still believe it is better than throwing away all those scourers and as I have said before I am aiming for reduced impact not zero waste. My intention when it comes to acrylic yarn is to only buy second hand or use my existing stash, so at least I am not fueling demand and increased production but that in itself is not a sustainable long term plan. I suppose I can always buy a jumper from a charity shop and unpick it.
So do they work? Oh yes they do, I love them. I can make a lot of them from one ball of yarn, they take me about an hour to make one but that is only because I tend to get distracted whilst making them (by using my hands to put chocolate in my mouth).
They are very tactile and can be squished into glasses, the grease doesn’t cling to them, they don’t tend to get that dodgy smell my old scourers did and I can bung them in the washing machine. Just like any other cleaning cloth I make sure to give them a good rinse with hot water after use and I hang them to dry, I tend to get a few days out of them before I feel the need for a fresh one (but like I said previously I don’t do loads of washing up).
Now these are only two options I have tried, there are many others out there so please leave me comments with what you have tried and what does and doesn’t work for you. Sharing is caring.
Eco Lass 